Regularity
by mystlyx
Summary: Sam Puckett does things without reason. Usually. Slight Seddie.


Disclaimer: I still don't own iCarly.

**Regularity**

I stomp into my apartment, slamming the door behind me.

"Freddie? Is that you?" My mother, the eternal mollycoddler, calls out from her bedroom down the hall.

"Not now, Mom!" I yell, and storm off to my room, slamming my own door, and locking it for good measure. Then I sigh and unlock it. It won't keep _her_ out...

Then I lock it again. At least my mother won't be able to bother me.

I chuck my bag towards the chair and throw myself down on my bed, glaring at the ceiling. For a while I just lay there, anger, disappointment, disbelief, and anger again all warring inside me.

I wonder why I'm surprised. Seriously. It's not like these things don't happen to me regularly when _she's_ around.

It's just that... lately I'd started to think...

Well, I don't know _what_ I thought exactly, but obviously I was wrong anyway so it doesn't really matter...

I decide to finally try those breathing exercises the school guidance counselor taught me. Surprisingly, they actually work. My eyes flutter closed as my whole body relaxes.

Imagine something calm and tranquil. _Endless expanses of snowy white mountain tops..._

_Beeeep! _

I jump and my eyes snap open as my cell phone trills again. All my muscles tense up as the days events come rushing back. _So much for relaxing..._

I sit up and pull my phone out of my pocket, flipping it open to check who the text is from.

One new message from Carly Shay.

I stare at the screen for a moment, debating whether or not to read it. Then, overwhelming curiosity defeating furious resentment, I give in and open it.

_Hey. how r u?_

I sigh. It is so like Carly to be as nonchalant as possible and pretend like nothing happened. I don't really want to answer, but I suppose she isn't the one who deserves the silent treatment.

_How do you think??? I'm not really in the mood to talk. _

I drop my phone on my bed, heave myself up, and amble over to my desk to start my homework.

Homework usually keeps my mind off things.

My phone beeps a couple more times, but I figure Carly can wait.

Just as I finish geometry and am pulling out physics, a furious pounding on my door interrupts me.

"Open the door, Freddie!" my mother calls.

"I'm doing homework, Mom! Go away!" I call back.

"Fredward Benson, you open this door right now!"

I sigh and heave myself up to open the door. She glares at me from the doorway.

"You can't just waltz into the house before school is even out yet, stomping around and slamming doors, and not expect me to be worried! What happened? Was there a fire? Have any bullies been bothering you? Did Carly turn you down again? Did you and Sam get into another fight?"

It's so completely pathetic that in those couple of words, my mother basically just described my whole life.

I really need to get out more.

"_Mom,_" I moan, "don't worry so much. I can take care of myself!"

"If you knew how to take care of yourself, you wouldn't let Sam walk all over you every single day, Freddie."

True, that.

"Look, Mom, I'm fine, please leave me alone."

I'm just about to turn away, when she pounces on me and starts checking my face and arms for bruises.

"Mom!"

"Well if you aren't going to tell me what happened, I'm just going to assume the worst!" She lets out a shriek as she discovers the still slightly purple bruise just above my elbow. "I knew it! You _were _in some kind of fight!" She pauses to shriek again as she finds a scratch on the inside of my wrist. "Did you even put peroxide on this?"

"I was _not_, Mom! And no, it's just a tiny scratch. It was from my bike-"

"Don't you lie to me, Fredward Benson! The proof is here on your arm! Come to the bathroom now and we'll clean your cuts, and then you'll have a quick bath before dinner, to wash off all the bacteria from the dirty hands of whoever you fought with... maybe we should make it a tick bath just in case... and then..."

"_Mom...." _

But I don't waste my breath protesting too much on a hopeless case.

----------------------------------------------

I lick the barbecue sauce off my fingers blissfully, pretending not to notice Carly's eyes boring into me from across the table.

_Mmm, ribs.... Yum...._

"So how was school today, guys?" asks Spencer, when he finishes filling us in on the new sculpture he has been commissioned to create by another famous art collector.

Carly makes a strangled noise and, giving me one last look, turns to her brother. "Mostly uneventful."

Spencer raises his eyebrows. "Mostly?"

Carly throws up her hands in exasperation. "Why don't you tell him what happened today, Sam?"

Spencer looks back and forth between us. "Okay, this doesn't have anything to do with Freddie coming home early and slamming an awful lot of doors, does it? Because I heard quite a fuss coming from across the hall not too long ago..."

Carly glares. "See, Sam? Whenever you do anything to Freddie, you're always causing him double the pain because he has to deal with his crazy mother afterwards!"

"Aw, come on, Carly," I say through a mouthful of meat, "it's not like I did anything physical to him this time. His nutjob of a mother won't even have anything to go on!"

"That's not what it sounded like," Spencer starts, but he shuts up quickly when I shoot him a dirty look.

Carly sighs. "Look, Sam, I know you don't think this is a big deal, but you just basically ruined Freddie's chances of going to UW!"

Spencer rolls his eyes. Apparently I'm not the only one who notices Carly's tendency to exaggerate. "Come on, Carly, how would Sam have been able to do that?"

Carly whirls on him. "Do you think you'd have ever been able to get into law school if the scout had come to your school and you ended up in a gigantic,_ ridiculous _(here she glared at me), _pointless _argument in front of him for no plausible reason whatsoever?"

Spencer stares. "Huh?"

Carly huffs. "Today was Career Day and besides the usual parents coming in to describe their jobs, there were all sorts of scouts from different colleges who came to talk to us, and of course have private meetings with potential students. Principal Franklin was eager to introduce Freddie to all of them, of course-"

"Of course!" I mimic in a high pitched voice.

"Sam!" Carly is back to glaring. "Just because -"

"Hey!" Spencer interjects. "So your principal wanted to introduce Freddie to the college dudes?"

"Yeah. And we all know that Freddie wants to go to UW so he can stay in the state or else his mom-"

"Spare me," I moan.

Furious, Carly turns on me again. "Come on, Sam! You know he wants to go! And you know how_ much_ he wants to go!"

I glare at my empty plate and don't answer.

"_And_ you knew Principal Franklin was introducing him to the scout from UW right then - I know you did! So why did you have to go harass him then? Of all the times throughout the entire day, _that_ had to be the moment for you to go pick on him?"

I roll my eyes. "It's not my fault the nub rises to the bait every time! He should learn to ignore me if he wants to avoid these situations."

Carly lets out a most unladylike snort. "Oh, easy for you to say! Come on, Sam, it was just mean! You made him make a complete fool of himself in front of the UW scout _and _all the other scouts there!"

I look down at my lap.

"It does sound like it was kind of mean of, Sam," Spencer says.

I shoot him a dirty look.

He doesn't take the hint. "Worse than usual..." His voice trails off as my expression intensifies.

There is silence around the table for a few minutes.

"Well?" snaps Carly. "Are you going to explain yourself?"

"Explain... what?" I'm genuinely confused.

"Are you going to explain why you deliberately sabotaged Freddie's chances of getting into UW?" she reiterates icily.

"Uh... for kicks?"

"Sam!"

"Well, what do you expect me to say?"

Carly cocks her head and looks at me shrewdly. "It's funny. This isn't how you usually operate."

"Huh?"

Carly pauses for a moment. "You're more spontaneous, usually. You don't think things through. And the results of your antics might be painful, but they don't usually have long-lasting effects."

Spencer and I stare at her dumbly. _"Huh?"_

She rolls her eyes. "When you play pranks, you give someone a wedgie, you get them in a little trouble... but usually by the next day everyone has forgotten."

"That's because by the next day I've done something else, Carls," I answer, trying hard to keep the smirk off my face.

Carly shrugs."Maybe."

I narrow my eyes. "What are you thinking exactly?"

She shrugs again. "Your pranks might be mean, but you're better than you used to be. Especially with Freddie. You're not as cruel."

I raise my eyebrows. "Well, I'll just have to fix that then, won't I?"

Carly ignores that. "Think about it, Sam. You haven't done anything _really _nasty to him since.... since when you told everyone about him never having kissed anyone."

I school my expression to appear carefully blank and try not to think about that particular episode. Aside from the automatic guilt, there were other... um... pivotal points in my life, I guess, that occurred around that time, which I usually prefer _not_ to ponder.

Spencer is looking back and forth between us, his mouth hanging open slightly. Carly is still lost in her revelation.

"So... so this time, you must have had some purpose. Either to get back at him for something really bad.... or... well I dunno why else, but I'm sure you have your reasons..."

Annoyed, I stand up, brushing some crumbs off my jeans.

Carly stands up too. "What are you doing?"

"I think I'll go home now," I answer coldly, picking up my jacket and starting towards the door.

This at least has the desired effect. Carly's and Spencer's mouths drop open. "But you _never _go home!"

"Yeah, well, no offense or anything, but I'm kinda sick of you dissecting me like a frog in biology class. So I'm gonna go. See you."

I leave quickly, closing the door behind me before she can say anything else. I mean, Carly is my best friend and all, but enough is enough.

I stop for a minute in the middle of the hallway, staring at the door to 8D. For a split second, I want to bust into the apartment and explain. But I don't.

Favor for favor.

He got Missy out of my hair, I'll get him out of Washington and away from the influence of his insane mother. Whether he appreciates it or not now (which he doesn't), he'll thank me some day. If he gets it. Which he probably won't. Whatever.

Unbidden, the thought that maybe, perhaps, he gave up just a bit more than I did in sending Missy away flies through my head. Or maybe a lot more, since I didn't really give up all that much except precious time that could've been better spent doing other things...

Oh alright. Fine. I won't slip blue cheese dressing into his shampoo bottle tomorrow night like I was planning to.

But that's _it_.

Favor for favor. Or favor for two smaller favors. Same difference.

Too bad if he won't even know if I decide not to put the dressing in his shampoo. He never bothered to tell me about Missy! I had to find out from a stupid eavesdropped conversation between him and Carly one night...

Well, we're even now, so I can stop feeling guilty and second-guessing myself every time I insult or physically hurt him, and things can go back to the regular way they are.

I hurry to the elevator, forcing all further guilty, grateful, affectionate, _stupid_ thoughts out of my head.

I need to stop spending so much time in this building, I decide, as Lewbert screeches something about no horrible children running in his lobby when I pass him on my way out.

That's the last time I try to do anyone a favor. All you get is crap for it afterwards.

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A/N: Okay, so I'm sorry this was so confusing. I wrote this over three times, and I'm STILL not happy with it. Oh well.

Tell me what you think!


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